


Fine

by brinnanza



Series: The More the Merrier [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Denial, Episode Related, Episode: s04e19 Some 38th Parallels, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 15:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14139477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: This is hell, Hawkeye is sure of it. Korea was already hell, and now he’s in double hell, some deep, dark, depraved layer that not even Dante had made it to. Because it’s one thing to commiserate with a buddy over an assignation gone awry, but it’s quite another for that buddy to be asking whether he’s jerked off recently, especially if said buddy is frustratingly attractive enough to maybe star in the related mental material -- if a person were depraved enough to do that sort of thing.





	Fine

**Author's Note:**

> It is my dearly held headcanon that the reason Hawkeye has ~problems with Nurse Able in Some 38th Parallels because he's trying too hard to convince himself he's not super into BJ. This is about that.
> 
> This is supplemental canon-compliant (ie it's part of the more the merrier verse). Thanks to Floot for beta reading (and also for the title).

Sometime between Rudyard Kipling and BJ drunkenly calling Frank “ferret face” to his actual ferret face before collapsing against an outraged Margaret, Hawkeye tries desperately to convince himself that BJ’s clean cut, all-American good looks are not, actually, all that good looking. He’s attractive the way a field of grass can be pretty- inoffensive pretty much across the board, but bland. His shoulders are too narrow and his feet are too big and if given the option, Hawkeye really prefers curly hair to wavy and with a touch more brown --

Hawkeye throws the brakes on that particular train of thought. 

So BJ is attractive. Objectively. That’s fine. So is Margaret, and while Hawkeye wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to play doctor with her, between her American flag-tattooed patriotism and almost total disregard for Hawkeye outside of the strictest, non-metaphorical medical context, it’s a non-starter. Fidelity is not that dissimilar a barrier, all things considered. It’s just as foreign a concept to Hawkeye, and this isn’t exactly his first run-in with it.

He throws the switch on that track too.

Coleman Hawkins turns out to be the tip of a very steep, very slippery slope. BJ keeps up with him, _keeps_ keeping up with him, and Hawkeye is absolutely not going down that path again. There are trees at the bottom of that mountain and mines scattered all along it, and it’s really better for everyone if Hawkeye sticks to the bunny slopes.

It’s fine. Really.

\--

“Strike three,” Hawkeye announces as he yanks open the door to the Swamp hard enough that it bangs off of the tent frame. “I think I’m out.”

Fortunately (for Frank’s safety), the tent’s only occupant is BJ, who’s penning what is probably yet another missive to his darling wife. He looks up at Hawkeye. “Big couldn’t again, huh?”

“Uh huh,” Hawkeye says, dropping down onto his cot. He reaches for the gin carafe out of habit but then withdraws, thinking better of it. “Apparently the venue is not the problem.”

“Nurses’ tent?”

Hawkeye shakes his head and very deliberately does not attribute any intention to the question. “Supply room. Which is usually where I go to forget my troubles, not create them.”

BJ throws him a sympathetic look, tempered, Hawkeye imagines, by similar frustration (though his at least is of his own making -- Hawkeye’s seen more than one longing look thrown in his oblivious direction). “Well if it’s not the girl and it’s not the scenery,” BJ says, “what’s left?”

“Me,” Hawkeye says. _You_ , Hawkeye doesn’t say. “Potter says I need a hobby.”

“Potter’s a wise man.”

Somehow Hawkeye doesn’t think knitting is going to help the itchy, restless need that’s been crawling under his skin for the last few days. “That _was_ my hobby. All I got left is drinking and short sheeting Frank’s bunk.”

BJ taps the end of his pencil against his chin thoughtfully. “Forgive me the over-familiar question,” he says, and alarm bells start ringing in the back of Hawkeye’s head, “but is it just Able you’re having trouble with? Have you tried with anyone else?”

Hawkeye can’t quite decide if he finds BJ’s overestimation of his success rate charming or just naive. “That’s all my at-bats.”

“Well, what about by yourself?”

This is hell, Hawkeye is sure of it. Korea was already hell, and now he’s in double hell, some deep, dark, depraved layer that not even Dante had made it to. Because it’s one thing to commiserate with a buddy over an assignation gone awry, but it’s quite another for that buddy to be asking whether he’s jerked off recently, especially if said buddy is frustratingly attractive enough to maybe star in the related mental material -- if a person were depraved enough to do that sort of thing.

Not that Hawkeye would know.

“If you weren’t so heavy a sleeper, you might already know,” Hawkeye says, the words making it past the decision-making part of his brain just a second too late to stop them. “Although discretion _is_ the better part of valor in such close quarters.” 

Predictably (because this is hell), BJ takes Hawkeye’s non-answer for an answer. “I can clear out for a little while if you want? It’s no Nurse Able, but it might take some of the pressure off.”

Hawkeye’s had a lot of close calls with sanity since he was unwillingly reassigned to Police Action General Hospital, but this might actually be the tipping point. Sexual frustration has finally driven him around that final bend. It’s the only reasonable explanation for BJ to be suggesting… what he appears to be suggesting.

And it’s not like he thinks BJ doesn’t know he does it, inflated ideas of Hawkeye’s prowess notwithstanding. They’re a bunch of guys 12,000 miles from home with relatively slim pickings when it comes to mixed company. It happens. They all know it happens. They just try not to know exactly _when_ it happens.

Hawkeye’s mouth runs off without him again. “You don’t want to stay for the floor show?” He forces himself to pair the words with a cheeky grin like this is a totally normal thing to say to your extremely happily married bunkie. 

BJ just gives him a smile that is dangerously close to a smirk and swings his legs off the side of the bed so he can shove his feet into his boots. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says, gathering up his things. And then, because there is apparently no end to the torment Korea has in store for Hawkeye, BJ winks at him before sweeping out of the tent, the door clattering shut behind him.

Hawkeye wonders a little desperately if the minefield is taking reservations.

Because he can’t -- he’s not actually _going_ to. “Shy” is not a term Hawkeye typically ascribes to himself, especially regarding sex, but there is something intimidating about knowing BJ is in the mess tent or wherever, writing a letter to his wife all the while knowing exactly what Hawkeye’s getting up to in the Swamp by himself.

BJ would probably just try not to think about it. He’d sip his coffee, concentrate on his letter, on home. Would he mention his eccentric tentmate? Would he be relaying some recent anecdote -- some prank they’d pulled -- and just happen to glance Swamp-ward, flushing hot as he remembers?

Would he picture it?

The image comes unbidden, BJ’s legs crossed under a mess tent table, coffee and letter both forgotten as he squirms on the bench to try and relieve the pressure brought on by the knowledge that just across the compound, Hawkeye is touching himself. BJ biting hard down onto his lip to keep from making any noise, his head bowed, reaching down to palm himself just once --

A groan tears its way out of Hawkeye’s throat, and he shoves his hand down the front of his trousers without actually deciding to. He gets a hand wrapped around his cock, already mostly hard, and even that feels so good he’s nearly dizzy with it. He withdraws his hand long enough to push his trousers and shorts out of the way, and then he throws his head back against his pillow, lifting his hips to meet his fist on every stroke. 

BJ wouldn’t be able to stop picturing it - the creaking cot, the groaning canvas, the moans Hawkeye doesn’t bother to stifle as he swipes his thumb over the tip of his cock. It’s late enough that the mess tent should be empty -- BJ wouldn’t be able to wait, would flick open his trousers right there to get a hand on himself. He’d be so wound up already, coiled tight from trying not to think of Hawkeye, that it wouldn’t take long. He’d imagine Hawkeye just like this, cresting higher and higher until they both tip over the edge --

“Oh -- BJ!” Hawkeye gasps at the same time the imagined BJ is gasping “Hawkeye!” and then he comes with a shuddering cry that settles into whimpers as gentle waves of pleasure wash any niggling feelings of guilt out to sea.

\--

Okay, it’s possible things are not _exactly_ fine. 

Which isn’t a surprise, not really -- it’s Korea, it’s a war, it’s torn up kids and spun out planes and Frank Burns and --

Well, there’s no need to get maudlin.

So Hawkeye is hopelessly, _breathlessly_ into BJ in a way that surely spells trouble down the line. That doesn’t mean it has to be like last time. It’s just that BJ is stupid hot, and Hawkeye has never been able to pass up a pretty face. Everything else, the terrible jokes, the back and forth that moves so quickly he’s half convinced BJ can read his mind (and wouldn’t _that_ be a shock to that apple pie and hot dog face), the way they lean on each other when OR goes on and on and on, that’s all perfectly platonic. Just because Hawkeye can imagine with perfect clarity shoving BJ up against the back of the generator shed and then dropping to his knees doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of acting normally around him. 

(Normal-ish, anyway. What passes for normal for Hawkeye, which definitely includes the occasional lewd comment in a tone that perfectly straddles the line between joking and sincerity.)

Anyway, it’s fine.

Probably.


End file.
